It's the social cachet of a high price and a hand-made object: not everyone is going to have one. It's like camping out in line for three days to buy tickets to a small event; you get in the door because you have proven you are more insane than all the other fans!

I will update the product page this evening to put more up for sale. The ship date for this next batch of sets will be 2-4 weeks from the time of purchase. At this time, I'm only able to produce a couple of sets a week.

My set just arrived. I love the look and feel of the pieces! For my full-sized hands, these pieces are a good size to grab and drop on another square without feeling like I'm a bull in a china shop. Also they fit perfectly into my Excalibur carrying case. Sorry, old chess pieces; you're going to have to live in a box now. I look forward to rolling out this set at the UTD chess club. Omar, should we coordinate a time to go together?

One thing that wasn't clear to me until I held the pieces in my hands is how much easier they are to tell apart than the Z-man pieces. Partly this is because ocmiente's pieces are all larger, but partly it is because the size differences have been exaggerated. (I could have inferred this when the video said the elephant is twice as tall as the Z-man elephant and the rabbit is only 1.5 times as tall, but I failed to make the logical leap.) In particular, I learned to tell apart the Z-man camel and horses by the mane and ears, but in ocmeinte's set the camel is obviously larger than the horses. Now size alone adequately demonstrates power without needing to recognize any animals.

I'm reluctant to bang around the pieces just to test whether they will break, but I intend to be rough with them in the normal course of use. I never liked playing on a marble chess set, because my fear of chipping pieces distracted me from the game. This set feels durable; time will tell how long it holds up to my abuse.

Expensive, yes, but the product is a treat to own after having been used to tournament chess sets and having been forced to scale down to the Z-man Arimaa set.

My set just arrived. I love the look and feel of the pieces! For my full-sized hands, these pieces are a good size to grab and drop on another square without feeling like I'm a bull in a china shop. Also they fit perfectly into my Excalibur carrying case. Sorry, old chess pieces; you're going to have to live in a box now. I look forward to rolling out this set at the UTD chess club. ...

Expensive, yes, but the product is a treat to own after having been used to tournament chess sets and having been forced to scale down to the Z-man Arimaa set.

Mega-Jealous!

Will you guys be total jerks and post/upload some more pics somewhere (various positions, camera angles, etc.) to rub our noses in it a little more?

Nice. But that carrying case doesn't look like it was constructed to hold a digital Chronos clock -- the standard-bearer for years in game timing accuracy, durability, and time control flexibility/customization. You oughtta get yourself one of those to totally pimp-out your set (unless they have been surpassed by something else that I'm not aware of).

Heh, yeah, I would get a fancier clock if I were buying today. I actually bought a digital clock twenty years ago, which was a mistake, because it was inferior to analog clocks of the time. Naturally I overcompensated when buying my second clock, even though by then digital clocks had inched ahead. And since then I simply haven't used my analog clock enough to wear it out; I suspect I won't buy a third game clock in my lifetime.

Oh, I bet you will. Analog clocks simply can't handle anything more complicated than SD time controls. PLUS you can't ever set the two sides to be exactly the same since it requires a trusting yet fallible human eyeball to set the hands. Imagine a day where real, well-attended, face-to-face Arimaa tournaments are held that would/should require a Canadian or Japanese byo-yomi, or other such non-SD control, and you'll be there with a clock that can handle it.

Well, you are quite right that I don't like being stuck with only sudden death time controls. Now I'm jealous of you. Turnabout is fair play, but I still bet you buy a better Arimaa set before I buy a better clock, particularly if your hypothetical world of well-attended face-to-face Arimaa tournaments comes true.